The newest cafe in Brighton you Doughnut want to miss…

*Competition*
Want to WIN half a dozen delicious doughnuts from Glazed? Simply comment below your dream doughtnut. Whether plain old jam or bannoffee pie, we want to hear it! Winner announced 31st May…

I am sure you have all noticed the number of coffee shops that have come a crop recently on turn of the tide that is the renewal of shop leases in Brighton’s city centre. This year’s rent renewal has seen the likes of Wahaca out bid old tenants to make way for a fresh new face, but it was something about this little Café on my walk to work one day that struck me as somewhat inviting. Perhaps it was the contrast in what was yellow now was perfect mix of purple and green Slate coloured building, or the funky and onomatopoeic name, Glazed. But something made me more sure of it than its other baking cousins, such as the recent Flour Pot and the predeceasing rise of Real Patisserie.

Paralleling the famous Brighton Level, opposite the lively skate park, James Brightmore, a happy-go-lucky, young and spritely 23 year-old, has set up shop in a café that is small in stature but with mighty personality. Glazed not only feels like home to the skateboarding bun-head but has become Brightmore’s pride and joy, residing in the café all hours of the day and night, opening the doors in the early morning to cook the donuts fresh for the day and staying into the late evening hours whipping up batches of dough in preparation for tomorrows business, a true baker as much as any. I can really say that I am in awe of Brightmore’s cool dedication to this, his first business venture, as venturing into business in a district like Brighton, an enterprise of passion is the only commerce that sticks in this place. And the donuts are a sticky business.

At 23, James isn’t exactly a characteristic entrepreneur, but he did do the one thing that really secures the success of the industry from the get-go, he found a gap in a market and found his own niche to fill it. Yet, still, this is not a tale of a business savvy opportunist; this is actually the story of a man who, starting out as a boy working in Café’s, went on to realise his dream of one day owning his very own coffee shop.

At the ripe young age of 16, Brightmore began his journey into the realms of all things Coffee and Café confectionary, learning the key tricks of the trade (which you would be surprised how few people have mastered), earning a talent for Latte Art and knowing all there is to know about frothing the perfect milk – including Soya and Almond Milk (which, no, isn’t the same technique as normal milk). Brightmore made me the perfect Flat White and we got to talking about his new café, Glazed, and I came to understand what set this little café apart from the rest of the multitudes of café’s in Brighton.

Like is say, it is no ground breaking phenomenon for a new café to open on Brighton’s high streets, in fact it has become much of a commonality for them to come and go quite regularly, so, what is it that makes Glazed stick out from the personalities that is the rest of the crowd of Café’s?

I shall tell you. @Glazedcoffee – as found on instagram – is no ordinary coffee shop: it is a modest little shop of simple black and white confidence that is the first of its kind in Brighton – an organic, made on site vegetarian and vegan Glazed Donut Shop.

And how did this all come about? Well, wondering around Brighton one day, with a serious case of the munchies, Brightmore realised that his drool worthy Homer Simpson Glazed Donut craving went unrealised, unsatisfied, less he quench it with a mass produced Krispy Kreme, a Supermarket pouch of 5 preserved donuts, or the Pier Donuts which are really saved for a pier occasion (i.e. a 1 time occurrence). There wasn’t a freshly made, warm, glazed donut in sight and, so he decided to change that.

Saving for a coffee shop for what he called “forever”, Brightmore bought his little donut den and set about coming up with a recipe for uniquely vegetarian donuts and learning all there is to know about making the perfect halo shaped delights.

An idea birthed and propelled into action in the early days of April, Brightmore is still learning the ropes and experimenting with the recipes. Glazed opened on the 25^th of April with a lustrously glazy selection of donuts which quickly gained the seal of approval of the likes of The Brighton Cannibis Club with its 19,200 followers and dozens of local and some international coffee houses. Brightmore has gained loads of followers with his instagram worthy coffee art skills and obviously photo-worthy rings of glazed goodness.

The donuts are made and prepared in the world’s smallest batch kitchen, preparing only a baker’s dozen of donuts at a time, so to make all the donuts for the day, Brightmore prepares the dough and repeats the cooking sequence 7 times to produce a glorious 91 donuts for the day: 30 of each of 3 new flavours of the day, plus the ones he makes for his original cinasugar bun (my working title – but in seriousness he must make more than a hundred donuts this way!). You should see it it is literally the smallest batch cooking system ever, only to really be bulked out by the hot iron toastie press which he plans to perform all worlds of imaginative donut curiosities… The donuts are homemade, with healthy, fresh ingredients, all locally produced – how much local can you get then the counter itself. Glazed donuts are the best sugar coated thing you could put in your mouth, with icing rich crispness to bite, and a fluffy doughy sweet delight of squishiness to chew. At the moment it’s all in the glaze with Glazed as Brightmore experiments with the original dough recipes, realising that the better contains only a modest and merely medicinal teaspoon of sugar in each batch, Brightmore hurdled towards his new creation of savoury donuts, donut pizza, and donut toasties. And to that I say, Fuck Yes.

I thank Jame’s Brightmore for being his hardworking baker self from 6am to midnight and opening his doors from 8am-8pm Glazed is a dream come true for me and my donut needs, I will never and need ever buy from another donut vendor again, and I will certainly be eating more for it (heavily aided by it being a 7 minute walk from my house – yes, I timed it). Glazed is in the most central of Brighton, on Union Road of The Brighton Level for £2.50 a donut you can get fantastically glazed donut from Peanut Butter Jelly, Espresso and Vanilla Berry flavours (to be only the selection I had to choose from on that day) – Brightmore doesn’t reign in the fun and creativity you can have with owning your own donut business, nor does his scrimp on the taste.

His classic and sell out donut is the cinnamon and sugar powdered donuts, which he sells a half a dozen for £10, takeaway and devour later.

I asked Brightmore what it was he aspired towards as the only roots up donut joint with passion, integrity and uniqueness in a long time (and being the only independent donut shop in Brighton). He mentioned a place of the name Crosstown Donuts in London which sells epic doughnuts at £35 per box of a dozen donuts, and that they make over 250,000 donuts every month. Well if that isn’t noteworthy in the donut world I wouldn’t know what is. And best of all, as goals go, it’s attainable: Crosstown started from the roots as a market stall that built up such a reputation that they are the success they are now.

The kid has serious coffee skill too. Serving the very local Pharmacie Hove coffee roasters blend, coffee that is not only delicious, but ethically sourced, quality Arabica coffee, hand-roasted on site and delivered to Glazed in style, by bicycle. Super-duper sustainable.

Plus, being a conscious soul, aware and considerate of the excess food waste, hungry and homeless dichotomy which is so prevalent in Brighton, any donuts he doesn’t sell, at the end of the day he, naturally, give rest to homeless, and his neighbours, and just generally spreads joy to the people of Brighton.

All of the takeaway cups are also 100% compostable. Without perhaps knowing, Brightmore seems to be setting up a precedent revealing the ease resourcing ecologically as a café, not only for his environmental brownie points, but also in that he makes his own, sorry bakes his own, which is so unlike so many coffee shops in Brighton & Hove, save a named few.

This isn’t just any old new coffee shop in Brighton, this is an inspired and impassioned coffee shop, playing host to donuts of Jame’s and our dreams: a donut utopia. I for one am excited to follow Brightmore’s Glazed and mildly confused adventures. It is so refreshing to see a fresh young, glaze smeared grin owning his own independent café and donut shop, in contrast to the multitudes of coffee houses that – though you wouldn’t expect it – are majority owned under one or two industry monopolisers. Glazed is on another level, it has a soulful gravity about it that happen when style meets substance.

Glazed is the biggest thing since avocados… (Did I break the internet?) Not really, but it is pretty close…

Glazed is officially listed as a Tourist Attraction on Facebook, and it truly is in the mornings: Brightmore favourite feature of the donut den is that it is east facing, so each early morning baking there is always a sunrise gleaming in through the shop window, spilling light onto his halos.

Glazed, a must munch. The flavour possibilities are endlessly explored with a dream of yesterday donut and ice cream Sundaes on Sundays,  you seriously do-nut want to miss out. Drool…